I'm still thinking with Jennifer, but one thought I have is that this must be
one that Ellin and Susan had or even Goodvis and Harvey, etc. as they were
originally inventing a new paradigm of comprehension. This is the nubbin of
breakthrough thinking, I think.
And then we go back to the Piaget quote (which I can no longer remember
accurately) about how kids need to construct knowledge and being forced to
articulate it (or being "helped" to articulate it by another) will hinder/stop
their construction of knowledge. We've deprived them of deeper understanding
with our good intentions. Sometimes it's our need for control, efficiency,
"get 'er done" and sometimes it's us operating thoughtlessly through a
transmission model of learning, making all kinds of assumptions about
"teaching" instead of paying attention to learning. It may be that we don't
understand; it may be that we don't even think!! I think those are actually
separate issues, and very different.
It's been my experience as I've worked with teachers through the years that
it's far more common that we don't think. We don't know, nor examine, our
beliefs about how kids learn. And, yes, that causes us not to understand, but
there's a really important key here.
Once teachers break through and begin to examine their assumptions and beliefs,
THEY STRIVE TO UNDERSTAND!! That has enormous implications for professional
development and for stakeholders to know; a teacher needs support not only as a
beginning teacher (which we don't do well either), but through his/her entire
career. The only way teachers grow into the kinds of professionals our
children need is to KEEP THINKING. As they are initially prepared in
universities, they just don't have the kind of schema they need to understand
deeply what they're being taught. (Think Piaget here.) It becomes essential
that we have access to their thinking after they have the schema to understand,
which is this case may just plain be teaching experience. They don't "get"
reflection until they are away from the kinds of university programs that
assess their knowledge by asking them what the main idea of this piece or that
is. :-) As long as they think there's one right answer, they can't grow into
understanding. As long as they are expected to parrot the instructor's one
right answer, they think shallowly, and maybe not at all. Talk about what
purpose you're reading for!!
But...my point here, I guess, is that an enormous majority of teachers just
don't know there's a better way, or even another way. And when they figure it
out one way or another (think listserve), they're ready to grow and learn.
Remember Maya Angelou: "You did what you knew how to do, and when you knew
better, you did better."
I'm still thinking.
Thanks, Jennifer.
**************
SO...here is where I am now. If I am teaching kids text structures, do I teach
main idea as a text structure,name it for them, knowing full well that many of
the things kids read in schools is organized this way....and that they may have
a better understanding of what they read on tests and in books/texts written
for little children? I also know full well that reading is an interactive
process between reader and text and I worry that by teaching the text structure
of main idea I may be misleading kids into thinking there really is a single
correct main idea rather than several important ideas that depend upon our
purpose for reading? > Jennifer
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